Activism is something that I try and stay away from. I hold the same cynical lens to Greenpeace as I do to BP press releases. Anyone with an overt agenda is going to distort information in their favour and be selective with opinions. The Misfit Economy is exactly the kind of thing I would then normally stay away from.

What appears to currently just be a rolling tumblr with some interesting photographs is actually the beginning of a Kickstarter project (aren't they all) which received full funding back in April to go and document what I might call alternative micro-economies and what they call misfit economies.

It's how they use the films they propose to make that will prove their worth. Another round of half-speed clips with kids in rubbish dumps might make us all feel kind of bad in a Kony 2012 kind of way, but I'm hoping they really delve in and get to grips with the mechanics of these economies and present real documentation of systems that might be applied or gleaned from in the developed world as alternatives to the accepted top-heavy system. The point of these micro-economies is that they're environment-specific. Cairo's rubbish town actually works because of where it is and regrettably provides the only source of income for people there. If these films aim to raise awareness in the hope of dismantling these economies it might be more destructive than beneficial. So if it is activism let's hope the point is not to change the subject but the audience. It would certainly be the kind of research I could have used a year or so ago when researching the Mumbai slum economies.